Political Gamble Pays Off In Salary Increase

SPRINGFIELD — TWENTY-THREE state lawmakers took a political gamble Wednesday and cast the decisive votes to give legislators and more than 1,000 other state officials pay raises.

The vote, which the Illinois Senate took in the waning minutes of the lame-duck 83d session of the General Assembly, was on a motion to reject the pay raises.

That motion fell one vote short of passage, clearing the way for the first major raise for state officials in six years.

The raises, which total $8 million a year, were recommended this week by the Illinois Compensation Review Board. The board`s recommendations take effect unless they are rejected or reduced by both chambers of the General Assembly.

A simple majority of 30 senators was needed to reject the recommendations; the Senate voted 29-23 Wednesday to reject.

The 23 senators who voted for the pay raise represent only 13 percent of the state`s 177 lawmakers.

But the legislature`s action Wednesday and the compensation board`s legality face a court challenge by opponents who believe that the legislature improperly delegated its authority when it created the board last spring to recommend state officials` salaries.

THE COOK COUNTY Circuit Court has been asked to issue a preliminary injunction barring the state treasurer and comptroller from disbursing funds for the raises.

Minutes after the Senate vote Wednesday, the House turned down the raises in a vote that was more political than substantive. Because the pay raises had survived in the Senate, the House vote didn`t matter.

But it gave many representatives an opportunity to vote against pay raises to protect themselves from voter backlash. A motion to reject the raises passed the House 76-31. Sixty votes are needed to pass a measure in the lower chamber.

The 23 senators and 31 representatives who voted for the raises compose less than one-third of the state`s lawmakers.

``I think the action of the Senate told certain members they could do anything that they wanted,`` said House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R., Elmhurst), who supported the raises. ``There were several people who knew they could vote any way they wanted.``

HOUSE SPEAKER Michael Madigan (D., Chicago), who also supported the raise, was disappointed that the House did not act in concert with the Senate. Madigan took the heat for approving the raises off his members by insisting this week that the House would not act on the proposal until the Senate did.

When the first proposal failed last month, the Senate voted unanimously to reject the raises, essentially shifting the political pressure and fate of raises to the House.

``What we have here is 23 senators . . . able to dictate to everyone in state government what the salary levels are going to be,`` said Patrick Quinn, head of the Oak Park-based Coalition for Political Honesty.

Quinn, acting as a plaintiff representing state taxpayers, asked Cook County Circuit Court Judge Albert Porter for permission to sue. Porter set a hearing for Jan. 18.

QUINN COULD only ask permission to file suit because, under state law, only the attorney general can sue to halt the appropriation of state funds.

Rep. Judy Koehler (R., Henry), one of the review board`s more outspoken critics, said that accepting a report by a nonelected body is an improper delegation of legislative authority that threatens representative government. The $4,500 pay raises for legislators were cleared less than an hour before members of the 84th General Assembly took office.

For the legislative pay raises to have taken effect this year, they had to be approved by the lame-duck legislature because, under state law, legislators cannot vote pay raises in their terms.

The 83d General Assembly, which includes legislators defeated in the November election, concluded business Wednesday.

THE RAISES WILL affect all 118 House members, but two-thirds of the senators do not qualify for the higher salaries immediately because they are in mid-term.

Higher salaries for the state`s executive officials, including the governor, will not take effect until after the 1986 elections. Cabinet officials will receive their raises this month.

The governor will receive a $27,000 increase, to $85,000 from $58,000, beginning in 1987. The plan raises legislators` annual salaries to $32,500 from $28,000.

It also gives Illinois Supreme Court justices a $10,000 pay raise beginning July 1, to $85,000.

Salaries of Appellate Court judges will increase by $10,000, to $80,000, and Circuit Court judges will get an $8,000 raise, to $73,000. Associate Circuit Court judges will receive $68,000, an $8,000 annual increase.